Hypersmurf
Moderatarrrrh...
Infiniti2000 said:I think the word choice for the descriptor signifies more than simply confounding terms.
Well, I'm on the "Darkness spell creates light" side of the Darkness debate; my reading is that the [Darkness] and [Light] descriptors, in the core rules, have essentially one effect - to describe how they interact with each other. (Counters and dispels light spells of lower level, or whatever, as appears in certain spell descriptions.)
It's not necessary for a spell to have the [Light] descriptor to illuminate an area (see Flaming Sphere); nor is it a given that a spell with the [Light] descriptor will illuminate an area (see Sunbeam). As far as I can tell, the only purpose of the [Light] descriptor is to flag interactions with spells with the [Darkness] descriptor.
So I don't see any contradiction with a spell with the [Darkness] descriptor illuminating an area. The descriptor isn't telling us "This spell makes things dark"; it's telling us "This spell has a special interaction with certain spells that have the [Light] descriptor".
Similarly, I don't see any contradiction in saying "Casting an [Evil] spell is not automatically an evil act"; rather, I see the descriptor as a flag saying "Look for other rules that reference this descriptor, as they may come into play".
-Hyp.